In the January-February issue of Army Sustainment magazine, Maj. Gen. Larry Wyche introduced the concept of strategic landpower, discussed its significant effects on the entire logistics enterprise, and briefly mentioned how developing globally responsive sustainment is essential to meeting the needs of strategic landpower. This article will explore the demands strategic landpower places on sustainment and some specific initiatives the sustainment community is developing to meet those demands.
Sustainment has a critical role in the successful execution of strategic landpower and the development of innovative solutions for its support. We fill this role by determining operational reach and allowing, extending, and prolonging operations through robust transportation, supply, maintenance, human resources, finance, and health service support. These tasks are especially important to implementing strategic landpower, which places demands on sustainment like never before.
Our mission as sustainers is to support "prevent, shape, and win" operations. Strategic landpower focuses on this imperative and seeks to achieve national objectives despite increasingly difficult conditions. Thus, for strategic landpower to be successful, sustainment has critical tasks within the prevent, shape, and win framework that we must not simply execute but excel in accomplishing. These tasks can be analyzed through each section of the framework to guide the development of a future force faced with an ever evolving world.
PREVENT, SHAPE, AND WIN FRAMEWORK
Over the past 12 years of war, the Army's ability to conduct major combat operations against a defined adversary has atrophied. In the same way, many sustainment skills supporting these operations, such as refuel on the move and joint logistics over-the-shore, have suffered the same fate. Future training events must focus on exercising these skills and positioning the force to influence and deter a larger range of threats.
PREVENT. Within "prevent," training and leader development are the most important considerations. Deterrence is not effective unless potential adversaries are fearful of the capabilities of our forces.
The United States must be able to respond to any threat with an appropriate use of force. This requires constant vigilance, and tough, realistic training that is in tune with events throughout the world. Leaders within our formations must be knowledgeable of current operations, their support, and any possible improvements. They must be prepared to command in any contingency.
To influence these threats and overcome anti-access and area-denial activities foreseen by the strategic landpower task force, we must continue to develop our preparedness for any such possibility. This can be accomplished through robust local training and intense rotational exercises. These events have the added benefits of showing the capabilities of the U.S. armed forces, deterring would-be aggressors, and helping to prevent new conflicts.
SHAPE. Success within shaping operations requires strong relationships. By improving relationships, building capacity, and developing the expertise of our partners, we can deter the outbreak of some conflicts and influence the nature of others.
Sustainers can facilitate this by continuing to develop our expeditionary capabilities, contracting experience, and transportation competencies, which can be accomplished through partnering, multinational training events, security cooperation activities, and disaster recovery assistance. Such engagements provide training opportunities throughout the deployment; reception, staging, onward movement, and integration operations; steady state support; and redeployment processes. These events stabilize otherwise unsteady regions, deter adversaries, prepare the force for conflicts, and posture for possible follow-on operations.
WIN. If prevention fails, sustainment must be ready to support all combined arms operations to ensure we win our nation's wars decisively. Strategic landpower does not focus on one type (or size) of conflict; instead it recognizes the possible range of events, such as operations short of war, irregular warfare, contingency operations, and full-scale conventional military operations.
The demands of these conflicts require Army forces to deploy rapidly into any type of environment, overcoming any area denial and anti-access challenges. This concept is vital; projecting power despite these difficulties is a primary mission of the U.S. armed forces. Strategic landpower recognizes the increasing difficulty of access and stresses that the relationships that occur within the land domain are important to overcoming these challenges.
Sustainment must facilitate rapid deployment of our forces to any part of the world, especially on short notice. Being prepared for any scenario includes the possibility of forcible entry, which we have not exercised for many years, instead of relying on forward staging areas.
In a prolonged conflict, sustainers must maintain their proficiency in supporting our forces for an extended duration. Through realistic training, sustainers can use the skills developed during the prevent and shape stages to be competent when it truly matters.
In a major conflict, logisticians must be able to integrate with joint, special operations, interagency, and partner forces to properly conduct unified land operations. This integration will be critical in the future as resources are further constrained and threats become increasingly complex. The best support is seamless and does not detract from the performance of wartime missions.
THE CORPORATE PARALLEL
Strategic landpower treats each combatant command as a customer seeking a custom solution to influence the "human domain" of its areas. Parallels can be drawn between this concept and real-world applications. Corporations use these techniques in their supply chains to respond rapidly to customer demand.
Instead of holding massive amounts of a specific item of inventory (like a brigade combat team that is prepared for a single type of conflict), these companies hold little inventory and capture demand in near-real time. This information drives the creation of inventory as it is needed (just like training forces on the latest real-world scenario instead of a contrived situation). Information flow is critical, with production (training) and consumption (force utilization) closely tied together. Finally, the product must be rapidly restocked for sale (as forces must deploy rapidly and respond to any situation). (See figure 1.)
STRATEGIC LANDPOWER SUPPORT CYCLE
From this idea comes the concept of a strategic landpower support cycle. This cycle must be focused on reducing the time to learn lessons and shaping the force to solve real and current threats, not fictional problems. Such a force is flexible, adaptable to the situation, capable of surging to meet the demands of each combatant commander, and able to focus on a single area because of a larger threat.
Sustainment forces have a key role in developing the concepts for supporting strategic landpower. Forward forces must gather lessons from current events, joint training exercises, deployments, and contingency operations to pass on to sustainers.
Recognizing that our leaders must be adaptable and able to respond to any situation, the institutional Army must develop instruction and solutions to address the issues faced by the forward force. We must transfer this knowledge through robust education and leader development in order to prepare the Army's future leaders.
Sustainers throughout the Army must anticipate one constant truth: change will occur. By anticipating change, they can react more quickly to the latest information and integrate best practices into their units. Through these actions, units will be better prepared for future events, operations, and conflicts.
Strategic landpower focuses on the desired outcome instead of a specific action. Army Doctrine Reference Publication 3-0, Unified Land Operations, defines landpower as "the ability--by threat, force, or occupation--to gain, sustain, and exploit control over land, resources, and people." However, the white paper entitled "Strategic Landpower: Winning the Clash of Wills," defines strategic landpower as "the application of landpower toward achieving over-arching national or multinational (alliance or coalition) security objectives."
The strategic landpower task force stresses the importance of the land domain throughout its messages across a broad range of operations, environments, and conflicts. In short, it will require focused logistics support in order to be successful.
As operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have taught us, successful strategies focus on human objectives. Influencing these objectives properly lays the groundwork for mission success. Success is not possible without dedicated forces on land. As such, sustainment must have a presence and enable units throughout the area of operations.
Although the Army is the predominant land force, the Marine Corps and special operations forces (SOF) each have their own areas of expertise within the land domain and have a great deal of influence on many activities short of war. Since future engagements and conflicts are sure to be joint, sustainment must be able to support a joint force consisting of any combination of these forces. (See figure 2.)
GLOBALLY RESPONSIVE SUSTAINMENT
The Combined Arms Support Command, the Army's sustainment think tank, has many initiatives that complement strategic landpower and lay the groundwork for its support. Guiding these initiatives is an approach called globally responsive sustainment (GRS). Fulfilling the goals laid out in the GRS white paper is a critical step toward developing robust support for strategic landpower.
The traits of GRS represent the pinnacle of a modern logistics system and the future sustainment enterprise. By developing a sustainment enterprise that is agile and flexible, integrated, protected, trained and ready, precise and responsive, and affordable, we can successfully support any operation within the prevent, shape, and win framework, as required by strategic landpower.
Facilitating proper support for strategic landpower through GRS development will require a great deal of effort. We must focus on training and readiness, preparing for decisive action, revising our modular sustainment structures, integrating and improving our logistics enterprises, and projecting our capabilities globally. We must be proficient in each of these and capable of integration to support strategic landpower in a predictably joint environment.
TRAINED AND READY FORCE INITIATIVES
Several initiatives are focused on developing a trained and ready force capable of supporting strategic landpower.
LOGISTICS LEADER DEVELOPMENT. The logistics leader development strategy focuses on creating adaptive Army logistics leaders. Such leaders will be able to operate in the complex environments accompanying strategic landpower operations. This requires problem solving, effective logistics planning and management, and wisdom in its application by understanding the human element. This initiative is guided by the Logistics Leader Development Board, which is charged with addressing the education and experiences that logisticians of the future will need.
REINVIGORATING SUSTAINMENT HOME STATION TRAINING (RSHST). The RSHST initiative focuses on improving readiness while easing access to training. RSHST seeks to enhance training opportunities at each major Army installation by exposing units to products and resources available within the institutional Army. This will require sustainment to provide forces that are trained and able to perform their core competencies. Because of the reliance on contracted logistics support, some Soldiers have not performed their military occupational specialties since completing advanced individual training.
Along with core competencies, strategic landpower requires us to be prepared for the entire sliding scale of modern warfare. Units are now training for decisive action missions, and sustainers must focus on forgotten practices and tactics, techniques, and procedures necessary to support these operations.
REGIONALLY ALIGNED FORCES. Remembering the human element, the forgotten tactics, techniques, and procedures must be analyzed for their compatibility with strategic landpower and effect on partner forces and local populations. The regionally aligned forces initiative addresses the specific challenges of each combatant command, focusing on specific training requirements and culture for that region.
Sustainment must question if current practices will meet the needs of each regionally aligned unit. In tune with the latest U.S. strategic guidance, sustainment units must train for operations within the Asia-Pacific region, regaining proficiency in skills, such as maritime lines of communication, watercraft operations, and joint logistics over-the-shore
MEETING EFFICIENCY REQUIREMENTS
While we analyze our training to ensure it is appropriate, we must also question the way we organize our formations. Strategic landpower will require agile and flexible sustainment units and revisions to our modular structures. Sustainment organizations must be scalable--able to provide support for small training opportunities as well as full-scale unified land operations. The logistics footprint must be analyzed for its impact on the local populace and its efficiency in performing the mission. Through these efforts, operations will have the support they require without compromising effectiveness.
To meet efficiency requirements, strategic landpower demands that our sustainment enterprise be upgraded. Stovepiped and antiquated systems that restrict information flow and hinder productivity must be eliminated.
The Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-Army) focuses on integrating many individual logistics systems, such as the Property Book Unit Supply Enhanced, the Standard Army Maintenance System-Enhanced, and the Standard Army Retail Supply System, into a single enterprise resource planning system. This will allow greater visibility of information, quality of data, and detailed capture of logistics requirements.
GCSS-Army will allow for a much more efficient sustainment enterprise, which is essential in a fiscally constrained environment with lower force levels. Future iterations of GCSS-Army will integrate transportation, food service, and ammunition capabilities leading to a single authoritative logistics system.
POWER PROJECTION
With a continental United States-based force, strategic landpower requires us to be able to project power worldwide. Essential to this effort is the Rapid Expeditionary Deployment Initiative (REDI). REDI is designed to improve and standardize deployment readiness to allow for a full range of military response options.
Within the full range of missions, the possibility of no-notice deployments and humanitarian support requires units to be trained and ready to deploy rapidly. With "deploy and redeploy" once again a mission essential task, getting to the fight is a critical element of unit preparedness.
Future events, wherever they fall within prevent, shape, and win, will rely on constant integration. For members of the strategic landpower task force, this integration focuses on the Army, the Marine Corps, and SOF. The relationship between conventional forces and SOF and their interdependence are key to the integration.
SOF's experience with a broad range of missions and interactions in the human domain makes it essential. Integrating with SOF must include developing joint logistics capabilities, pooling resources, and maintaining the ability to surge resources when necessary.
However, our integration is not limited to Marines and SOF; it must include Reserve forces. The Army Total Force Policy, a priority from the secretary of the Army, integrates the Active and Reserve components as a single total force. It seeks to determine the optimal balance of Active and Reserve units, and to leverage the sizable experience of the Reserve component gained over the past 12 years of war.
This effort is critical to sustainment since the bulk of its structure in located within the Reserve. The integration of Active and Reserve components is essential to strategic landpower since it may require any possible blend of Active and Reserve units, depending on the mission. In addition, the One Army School System initiative is an important step to standardizing leader training and education across components.
Sustainment has a crucial role in the continued development of strategic landpower. Faced with the task of supporting a much larger range of operations in a fiscally constrained environment, logistics leaders must anticipate the demands required by the possible range of missions. We must be not only competent logisticians but also regionally aware and culturally sensitive. For success within strategic landpower, we must support our force and exert positive influence on the human domain.
These initiatives are an important first step. However, all sustainers must weigh how their units, missions, and personnel are affected by strategic landpower and consider solutions for improving their support for it. Our future leaders will face the Army's next engagements, and adaptive leaders are essential to ensuring success.
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Lt. Col. Robert P. Mann is the Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) planning group chief. He holds a bachelor's degree from Rider University and a master's degree from Florida Institute of Technology. He is a graduate of the Quartermaster Officer Basic Course, the Combined Logistics Officers Advanced Course, the Logistics Executive Development Course, and the Command and General Staff College.
Capt. Alexander J. Amato is assigned to the CASCOM command planning group. He holds a bachelor's degree from Illinois Institute of Technology and a master's degree from the College of William and Mary. He is a graduate of the Transportation Officer Basic Course, the Unit Movement Officer Deployment Planners Course, the Combined Logistics Captains Career Course, and Airborne School.
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This article was published in the March-April 2014 issue of Army Sustainment magazine.
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